Historical Development

[BartonThinks 3,416]

EDIT: I've started a separate thread for this project, found here. Moderators, please feel free to close this thread.

 

Hi guys,

New to the forum, relatively new to SC4, and hoping to get some advice from some of the more experienced modders on the site.

When I started playing SC4 a few months ago, I loved the game. However, like a lot of other players, I felt like certain features were missing. The mods on SC4Devotion and Simtropolis have helped fill in a lot of these gaps, but there’s one feature I haven’t been able to address, and I’m toying with the idea of DIYing a mod myself.

In short, what I’d like to be able to do is start a settlement in the middle of the 19th century, then develop it over the course of 150 years into a modern city. At each point in the city’s development, it would visually and functionally reflect the period. For example, in 1865 the traffic would be horse-drawn, the architecture would be Victorian, features like highways would be unavailable, etc.

I don't think there's anyway to do this with a single, plug-and-play plugin. So as far as I can tell, the best way to do this would be to keep a base set of files in your plugins folder, containing all of the dependencies and lots that one would need over the course of 150 years. Then, there would be a set of separate era-specific plugins, each for a specific 25-year era (e.g., “ZZZ_1850 to 1875”, “ZZZ_1875 to 1900”).

Each era-specific folder would contain:

• Menu blockers to control which ploppable buildings are available in a given era
• Lot blockers to control which growable buildings appear in a given era
• Mods to update various automata, textures, and props
• An updated Traffic Simulator to encourage realistic vehicle usage?? (this one’s a maybe)

When starting a new city, the plugins folder would contain the base files and the “ZZZ_1850 to 1875” folder. Then, after 25 years of gameplay, the player would replace the “ZZZ_1850 to 1875” folder with the “ZZZ_1875 to 1900” folder.

Unless I’m mistaken, this would allow a player to quickly update the appearance of city infrastructure and control which buildings grow during which eras in a city’s history. But it would also ensure that buildings from previous eras don’t get lost to history (i.e., brown boxed), since the lots for those buildings would remain in the plugins folder. By controlling which types of buildings and infrastructure are available, it would also force the player to adapt their style according to historic limitations (e.g., a greater reliance on railways prior to widespread automobile usage).

I’ve got a wishlist of additional features that I’d love to include with this, but the core idea depends on the system outlined above. So I wanted to check with some of the more experienced forum members... Would the system outlined above would actually work? Or is there something I’m missing that would break the game here?

 

P.S. Obviously, this would be a pretty ambitious project, and I’m very new to SC4 modding, so this might not be a realistic undertaking. So maybe treat this more as a thought experiment than anything else. Also, quick note of appreciation to SimCoug for his “New Sorgun” City Journal, which beautifully illustrates the spirit of this idea.

[xxdita 1,097]

You may want to follow along with this thread, as it does hold potential to help a lot with what you're trying to do. 

But until that mod is released, I would recommend trying out StartUp Manager. 

[xxdita 1,097]

You may also want to look into using DAMN for keeping plopables locked until you want them. 

[BartonThinks 3,416]

11 hours ago, xxdita said:

You may want to follow along with this thread, as it does hold potential to help a lot with what you're trying to do. 

But until that mod is released, I would recommend trying out StartUp Manager. 

I noticed that thread just after I'd posted this one, and it's great to see how quickly Cori seems to be making progress. If the mod works, it could really simplify things on my end, since it would save the trouble of having to create hundreds of era-specific lot-blockers.

That said, there are some things I'd like to be able to do that would still require juggling plugins. (E.g., updating automata.) So it looks like StartUp Manager could be a huge help with that. I've been using a different startup program to set a custom resolution for the game, so I'll need to figure out if there's a way to do that with StartUp Manager or find a similar program that also offers plugin management (maybe this one).

Also, thanks for the tip re: DAMN. I was hoping to keep the number of ploppable lots low enough that I could avoid using DAMN for actual menu management, but I haven't looked into whether there's a simpler way to block ploppable lots from appearing in the menu. But it seems like it's probably the best/easiest choice for creating those blockers to begin with.

Thanks a ton!